Campaign
2004: What the Voters Missed
The
country’s new leaders will wrestle with the problems plaguing the Philippines:
a huge debt, an alarming budget deficit, a growing jobless rate, and plunging
investments. Not to mention a potentially explosive population growth rate amid
increasing poverty and a rising Communist insurgency.
By
Carlos H. Conde
Bulatlat.com
The
country’s new leaders will wrestle with the problems plaguing the Philippines:
a huge debt, an alarming budget deficit, a growing jobless rate, and plunging
investments. Not to mention a potentially explosive population growth rate amid
increasing poverty, a rising Communist insurgency and terrorism.
These
problems, of course, have always been there. They are, in fact, at the core of
the country’s concerns. Or at least they should be.
But
these issues hardly surfaced, let alone were discussed, during the campaign the
past three months. The candidates, including the incumbent President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, chose instead to entertain.
“Philippine
politics remains a politics of personalities,” said Rosario Bella Guzman,
executive director of Ibon Foundation, a private research institute.
Entertainment, mainly to attract crowds, and the campaign’s focus on
personalities rather than programs sidelined these issues during the campaign,
she said.
“The
most disappointing aspect of this election is that nobody came out with good
platforms. All were motherhood statements,” said Benito Lim, a political
scientist at the Asian Center of the University of the Philippines.
The
Philippine economy is one of the worst performers in Southeast Asia, data from
the Asian Development Bank (ADB) show. The bank forecasts gross domestic product
this year at 5 percent, the lowest in the region after Indonesia.
The
unemployment rate is high (11.4 percent), a “major cause of poverty” and a
reflection of the economy’s lack of capacity to generate employment, the bank
said.
The
government’s foreign and domestic debt has been rising steadily; as of
February, it stood at $61 billion. If the government pursues its plan to borrow
more than $1 billion more this year, the country’s debt level could surpass
the value of the domestic economy.
Spending
on social services has declined because debt payments increased. The government
spends 32 percent of its annual budget on debt servicing.
The
huge budget deficit, which reached almost $3.5 billion in 2003, has wreaked
havoc on the country’s fiscal position. The ADB blamed weak tax collection for
the deficit.
Political
uncertainties
Foreign
direct investments decreased: from $1.8 billion in 2002 to only $319 million
last year. This was largely due to political uncertainties that scared investors
away, the bank said.
The
population is growing rapidly, at 2.3 percent a year. “Rapid population growth
retards development in the country,” the bank said in a report released last
month. “Unless major economic and political reforms are accomplished, it will
be extremely difficult for the country to lift its potential growth rate,” it
added.
More
than half of Filipinos live on less than two dollars a day, many under
conditions of extreme poverty. In the countryside, landlessness is still
prevalent while the peasantry, long neglected by the government, continues to
provide the warm bodies for the 35-year-old communist rebellion.
But
the Filipino electorate hardly had a glimpse of these problems during the
campaign.
The
fact that Ms. Arroyo’s strongest challenger happens to be the country’s most
popular actor may have played a part in the candidates’ failure to tackle
these issues, Ibon’s Ms. Guzman said.
In
her campaign rallies, Ms. Arroyo, 57, used entertainers to attract crowds just
as much as her main opponent, Fernando Poe Jr., did. At one point, her camp held
an Arroyo look-a-like contest that featured homosexuals dressed and made-up like
the president.
In
her political advertisements, Ms. Arroyo highlighted not only her
accomplishments -- mainly infrastructure projects -- but Mr. Poe’s handicap as
well, particularly his political inexperience and supposed lack of intelligence.
It didn’t help that Mr. Poe had been silent about his platform.
Pre-election
survey
And
it seemed to have worked: quick counts and exit polls indicate that Arroyo was
leading in the counting. But a survey before the election also showed that
almost a quarter of the electorate – 24 percent – were either
“undecided” or “uncommitted.” The outcome for the president and
vice-president, the pollster said, “hinges on the decisions of the undecided
and the uncommitted.”
Mr.
Poe’s camp tried not to sound worried. Just like in his movies, his campaign
manager said, Mr. Poe would beat his enemies in the end.
The
campaign had been a bitter one, made more acrimonious by the lifting of the ban
on political advertisements that allowed candidates to publicize just about
anything, true or not, that they could use against their opponents.
In
his final campaign rally on Saturday, the 64-year-old Mr. Poe sounded hurt and
indignant. “Public service is not about your accomplishments and boasting
about it,” he said. “It is not about insulting others and mocking them. It
is about choosing one who is honest and trustworthy.”
Aside
from Mr. Arroyo and Mr. Poe, three other candidates are running for president:
Panfilo Lacson, a former police chief; Raul Roco, a former senator and education
secretary; and Eddie Villanueva, the leader of the country’s largest Born
Again group called Jesus Is Lord.
The
Philippines has more than 42 million registered voters. On May 10, they voted
for president, vice president, 12 senators, 212 congressmen and more than 17,000
local positions, from provincial governor down to town councilor. Bulatlat.com
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